Previous disclosures relating to the entry of passwords include U.S. Pat. No. 9,513,779 (“Brown et al.”) and US Patent Application 20110247060 (“Whitmyer J R.”)
To use many services and functionalities of computing devices, it is necessary to have an account and enter a password to gain access. This is done to prevent unauthorized access to the service or functionality. To prevent unauthorized entities from gaining access to these services and/or functionalities, more and more long and complex passwords are being required. This is due in some part to the increasing sophistication of entities (such as hackers) in “cracking” passwords.
For example, a banking website may require a user to have a password with a minimum length (perhaps 8 characters) containing characters from 3 of 4 categories (such as lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers and symbols.) The larger the number of characters and categories employed in a password, the more combinations are possible and thus the greater difficulty in “cracking” the password.
Unfortunately, the longer and more complex the password, the more difficult it is for a human to remember. This may lead to a person using various strategies in password creation that may make the password less secure. Such strategies may include using a single password for many different uses (different websites, computer logins, etc.) or using common passwords that are easy to guess (“Passw0rd”, “Letmein!”, etc.) These strategies may reduce the effectiveness of requiring long and complex passwords.
Accordingly, additional, alternative, and/or improved devices and methods for password entry while also overcoming at least some of the challenges described above remain highly desirable.